This car’s skin is four times lighter than paper

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You may have seen a waterproof jacket made with Texapore Softshell, but German engineering firm EDAG has stretched it over a 3D-printed frame to build a new ultra-lightweight concept vehicle.

The material covering the Lightweight Cocoon — while strong, waterproof, and windproof — weighs just 19 grams per square meter. That’s about four times less than the 60-pound paper in your office’s copiers and printers. Underneath lies a structure that’s dramatically different than what you’d find in a car on a dealer’s lot today.

EDAG took their inspiration from a light object found in nature: leaves. An airy, webbed substructure provides strength and gives shape to the fabric skin without adding too much bulk to the design. But while EDAG’s press release speaks about the concept car’s Texapore Softshell being lightweight and resistant to the elements, it doesn’t mention anything about how it holds up during an impact.

EDAG may never put the Cocoon through a single crash test, of course. For now, at least, it’s a concept vehicle meant to impress visitors to the Geneva Motor Show and give potential design clients a glimpse of what the EDAG team is capable of.

The company isn’t alone in skinning a car this way. Six years ago, BMW showed off a similar concept vehicle: GINA. Although BMW’s design also stretched fabric over a skeletal structure to give the car its shape, the use of fabric was about more than keeping the curb weight down.

GINA was designed to reconfigure its shape to adapt to certain driving conditions. A network of actuators beneath its waterproof Spandex skin could push and pull when required. The headlights, for example, remained hidden behind “eyelids” that GINA could peel back when roadway illumination was needed.